


the traitor

by bluebeholder



Series: the accidental epic [35]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Conspiracy, Continuity Lockout, Gen, Good Guy Theseus Scamander, Mild Hurt/Comfort, There Are Like Five Other Stories Leading Here, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 19:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13553805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Theseus Scamander, private security consultant, takes on a new client. After almost twenty years, he never expected that he'd cross paths with Leta Lestrange--especially not under these circumstances.The clouds of war continue to gather.





	the traitor

**Author's Note:**

> Two stories in two days? SHOCKER.
> 
> But hey: I'm back! And with some good old Theseus content. AND MORE LETA. Because we need more Leta.
> 
> You may recognize most of these mentioned names from other stories in this subplot. 
> 
> And I'm really, really sorry if this makes no sense. The recommended stories to catch up: "the brother", "the pure-blood", "the detour", and "the recruit". In short, that'll set up some Theseus, it'll set up Leta, and it will give you hints about what's going on with Grindelwald in other areas. Good luck!! <3<3<3
> 
> I'm starting to feel like Robert Jordan...

He expects it, given that they’ve been corresponding on and off for about a year, but still, when the owl arrives telling him that she’s coming, it’s unsettling.

Theseus receives her at his office. He has one of his own, in a nondescript office building in London connected to the Floo Network by its fireplace, five-and-a-half blocks’ walk from the Ministry of Magic. It’s a pleasant but spare office, with one regular window and a door with a glass pane. There’s a fireplace at the far end of the room from the desk, and he’s set his desk so that the door is on his right hand and he can pull a wand the second someone enters. There are two chairs facing his desk, and he has a bookcase enchanted to prevent Muggles from seeing the real titles of his books. It is, in all respects, a perfectly decent and ordinary office. As far as the lease is concerned, he is Thesival Stockton, solicitor; as far as the wizarding community is concerned, he’s Theseus Scamander, war hero, former Auror, and private security consultant.

He's just a little famous.

So is she.

Of course, he knows who she is in a much more personal way than the rest of the world. They have a history, no matter how long ago now; moreover, they’ve taken contracts for the same employer. He works with Gringotts Bank regularly; though the goblins are ridiculously good at security and certainly don’t need Theseus, security is a dirty job they don’t mind delegating to a wizard. Theseus is happy to do it. The work pays well, isn’t too literally dirty for the most part, and builds reputation like nothing else. And she works for them, too, on a more regular basis—as one of their Curse-Breakers, going into barrow-mounds and uncovering treasures across Britain.

But, until today, they haven’t crossed paths since 1913.

The knock at the door is swift and sharp. Theseus, behind his desk, flicks his wand at the door and it opens. When Leta Lestrange walks into the office, it’s all he can do not to stare in shock.

At Hogwarts, he remembers her mostly as a small girl, flat everywhere that counted, round-faced and doe-eyed. Habitually a wearer of soft, frilly things, things that got set on fire during her experiments and came out singed. Pretty, but not _striking_. This woman…Merlin’s Beard.

She’s still small, no doubt about that; if he were standing he’d be looking down at her. But her curves have filled in, _and how_. Her clothes are stylish and sleek, robes in the latest style. Her round face is narrower, her makeup impeccable, hair styled short. And how she carries herself…as if she’s a queen, regal and beautiful.

“Done looking yet?” she asks, sitting down in front of his desk and cocking her head. The flash in her eyes and the way her hand slides to her side, where a wand might be holstered if she’s carrying it in the American style, reminds Theseus that yes, this woman _is_ a star Curse-Breaker, and capable of everything Theseus can do.

“Yes,” he says. “I suppose I’m mostly surprised. Haven’t seen you in almost twenty years.”

“With good reason,” Lestrange says. “I’ve done my best to avoid you Scamanders.”

Theseus leans forward. “Then why owl me now?” he asks. “Someone like you has no business needing a private security consultant.”

“Someone like me needs a private security consultant more than half the clients you take on,” Lestrange corrects. She leans back in the chair, crossing her legs. “You know about the boys who’ve gone missing, yes?”

The case of the century, that one is. A group of boys, all entering their sixth or seventh years at Hogwarts from every house, vanished without a trace. It’s presumed that they’ve run away: Theseus hasn’t been called upon to lend his assistance yet, but given time…

“Yes,” he says. “What do you know?”

Lestrange looks out the window. “They’re in Australia,” she says, “shepherded by Torquil Travers, Druella Rosier, and Marcus Lestrange.”

It takes only half a second for the implications of that entire sentence to sink in.

“They’ve all gone over.”

“Yes,” Lestrange says. Her lips are pressed tight together. She’s not looking at him, but something about it is less angry and more vulnerable. As if she’d cry if their eyes met.

Careful, aware that he’s walking on very thin ice, Theseus asks, “How do you know?”

“Marcus Lestrange is my cousin,” she says, and adds snidely, “How do you think I know?”

More to the point, why is she here? Half-remembered phrases float up into Theseus’ brain. “Fidem Nostram Solus Sanguis,” he says aloud, hoping his memory is correct.

She _flinches_ like she’s been hit.

“What kind of rubbish is this?” Theseus demands. “You write vague letters hinting at trouble among the big families for almost a year and never tell me anything except that you’ll call ‘when the time is right’. Then you come sweeping in here and decide not to tell me anything, dance around the subject like you’re afraid of what I’ll say. Claim you know where those boys are and know one those damn fanatics, and then come to see me, a half-blood who’s as close to Dumbledore as you get without being named Newt?”

“I came to you because of Newt,” Lestrange fires back. She swings back to face him and there’s fire in her eyes. “He respected you in school. You’re a war hero. You’re on record saying you’d personally cast a Killing Curse on Grindelwald if it meant saving innocent lives. You’ve got a reputation for honesty and competence that half the Aurors in the Ministry haven’t got. Who _else_ would I turn to when I’m trying to get _out_ of my family?”

Her words hit the air and fall, heavy, to sit on the desk between them.

“Out of your family.”

“I want nothing to do with Grindelwald,” Lestrange says softly. She watches him steadily. “I’m already one step from being the family scapegoat. Won’t take much for them to just disown me…and once they do that.”

Her statement is broken and incomplete; it’s not hard for Theseus to know what she meant to say. He nods. He folds his hands on the desk, because they’re shaking just a little. “How much of the family’s gone over?”

She swallows hard. “How much do you think?”

It’s silent again for a very, very long moment. That’s…many people. And Theseus knows how the old wizarding families work: they’re all intermarried. Leta Lestrange is technically connected to the Shacklebolt branch, though no one in either family discusses that match. Theodosia Lestrange just got married to Samuel Avery in the largest wedding seen in England since 1926, wrapping another connection between the families. There have been famous matches with the Malfoys, the Blacks, the Notts, even the Weasleys. Just how far does the reach of the Lestrange family go?

Theseus would need weeks with genealogies that weight as much as his _desk_ just to begin to get an idea. That’s without putting into consideration bribery, shared land deeds, and favors, and political appointments that make up the rest of the strings connecting them all to each other. It’s an impossible job, and one he can’t begin to undertake.

“You didn’t take this to the Ministry.”

“I don’t know how high up this goes,” she says. Lestrange’s face twists a little and she looks near tears. “I…have files, I have records, the people I _know_ , but they’re hiding things from me. Because I’m a Shacklebolt too, don’t you see.”

Theseus doesn’t bother to ask why she wouldn’t run to the Shacklebolts. That would be social suicide. And they probably wouldn’t take her back. “So you came to me.”

“Yes.”

“What can I do for you?”

She stares at him, expression blank, for a long moment. “I don’t know,” she says dully. She absently fixes the impeccable cuff of her sleeve. “I’ve been working along a very long time now. I thought perhaps—someone I could trust—I don’t know—”

In stunned silence, Theseus watches as she covers her face with her hands. Her shoulders shake with almost-silent sobs. He doesn’t know what to do with this. He’s _bad_ at comforting people. But she looks so small sitting there, nothing like the imperious woman who came sweeping into his office demanding his attention.

And…well, Newt had liked her once upon a time, hadn’t he. It’s damn hard to get Newt’s good opinion, and he’s yet to be wrong when he decides about someone’s character. No matter how it ended, Lestrange had been trustworthy. And even if they hadn’t spoken after the expulsion, Newt had _never_ said a bad word about her. Her professional reputation is on a par with his, though she was never an Auror; she’s made headlines in the Prophet more than once, uncovering some ancient and impossible treasure.

Leta Lestrange is a collection of contradictions that Theseus can’t begin to understand.

But he really doesn’t like seeing her cry.

“Hey,” he says, stretching his hands across the desk, palm up. “Miss Lestrange.”

She looks up at him, eyes red-rimmed and perfect makeup streaked. “You can’t help me.”

“I can’t get your out of your family,” Theseus admits. He looks pointedly at her hands and, tentatively, she places hers in his. Small, slender, the right one callused from holding a wand. “But I can protect you a little.”

“How?”

“I’m damn good at my job,” he says. “I can hide your files, your information, securely. We can build our own files, keep them safe from those damned traitors.”

Lestrange sniffs, lips trembling, visibly trying to control herself. “Yes. Your fees…?”

“Pro bono,” Theseus says.

“I can pay.”

“Not out of accounts your family isn’t watching.”

She looks like she’s been hit again. He feels sorry for her with that: it’s his job to assume that everything’s a threat. Indeed, Theseus has helped clients escape some nasty situations in which their money wasn’t at all theirs. But Leta’s never done this before. Of course she isn’t thinking about the fact that all her money is in the Lestrange vaults.

He squeezes her hands. “You’ve got to go on as usual,” he says. “Keep on taking your notes, keeping your records. If you can trace how high this really goes, we can get it to people who need to know. I’ll hold off on telling Dumbledore until we know just how extensive the network is. And while you’re observing, I’ll start setting up precautions.”

“Precautions?”

“Safe houses. One-way, temporary Floo links. Stocks of Polyjuice Potion. Tickets for ships, false documents. All of it,” Theseus says. No: promises. “If push comes to shove, I _will_ keep you safe.”

She manages a smile. “I believe you. After all, you’re the one who put a _dragon_ under Gringotts.”

“I am that,” Theseus says. He pulls out his best, cockiest grin, the one that makes all the gentlemen and ladies swoon at his feet. It doesn’t seem to be having that effect on Lestrange, but oh well. She’s his client, not a date. “Trust me, Miss Lestrange.”

“Leta,” she says. “Call me Leta.”


End file.
